Let me say goodbye
by TheSingingGirl
Summary: The decision to leave at the beginning of New Moon from Alice's POV. It's not only Edward and Bella who have to give up someone they love. And Alice can see exactly what this will do to them.
1. Aftermath of a party

_Disclaimer: Thankfully, Stephenie Meyer owns Twilight, not me. Otherwise you would never have got Twilight in the first place!!  
AN: This is Alice's story of Edward's decision to leave Bella. After all, if he loses his love, she loses her sister._

Let me say goodbye

Jasper and I were in our room, curled up on the bed when Edward returned from Bella's for the night. Jasper felt him approach the house before we could hear him – a sign of the magnitude of his emotion. Jazz glanced up, desperately trying to control Edward's feelings.

"I thought he would stay at Bella's tonight," he said.

Kicking myself for not warning him, I shook my head. "It was too much."

There was no further explanation needed from me. Jasper spoke for a while of what he felt from Edward, as he sometimes did when someone's emotions were too much. He knew I would always listen to him, and wouldn't interrupt. I just let him talk, my eyes fixed on his, as he gave voice to the turmoil.

So much rage and guilt filled the house that night. Jazz assumed that Edward would be angry at him; it was only to be expected – he _had _tried to murder and devour the love of Edward's life earlier today. I wondered if my brother might blame me in any way. After all, it was my attempt to pull off a birthday party that had culminated in this disaster. Both of us felt immensely guilty, me for setting up the whole situation in the first case and not seeing the outcome in time, and him for losing control and attacking. It was also the first time that I fully understood why Edward had despised his very nature for so long as I remembered being forced to leave the room while Carlisle worked on Bella's arm. It was natural, therefore, that we should apologise to the two of them, Edward and Bella.

As soon as he was in control of the magnitude of Edward's emotions, Jasper was all for apologising straight away, but I stopped him. I knew Edward. He needed time to calm down, and naturally, too. He needed to find his own closure on today's events, without Jazz's help, as much as it hurt my husband to feel this. For God's sake, I had even seen him take his feelings out on Bella! No surprise, then, that he had run straight upstairs to his room, slamming the door. We heard Esme go to follow him and Carlisle put his hand on her arm. I watched as she paused for a moment, and he pulled her into his arms. I knew it must hurt her so much to see her first 'son' in so much pain.

Jasper and I joined them after a while and for a few hours the four of us simply sat in the living room, waiting. None of us spoke; nothing needed to be said, and Edward would hear every word. It was bad enough for him to hear our thoughts. Every now and again I would focus on Edward's future, but nothing changed – he was standing staring out of the window at the moon, what little was left of it, as he came to terms with the events of the day. Once or twice, Jasper winced as another wave of emotion would reach him. I could see the faint echo of Edward's pain in my love's eyes, and I clutched his hand in mine.

Emmett and Rosalie had left to go hunting earlier, as soon as they had wrestled Jasper from Bella's party. Unlike Jazz, they had not returned. Rose felt a smug thrill of pleasure as her predictions almost came true before her eyes: if Bella had been killed it would have revealed what we were to the world. We would have had to leave Forks, to start over. And she would have been right in another way: Edward's relationship with Bella would only hurt him in the end.

I banished the thought before he could hear me, and checked Edward's future again. First the immediate future: he was still standing in his room, but he was shaking with broken, dry sobs. Next I looked to the far future, decades from now, but I came up with the same image as always: Edward and Bella, inextricably linked, immortal as their love. I took comfort that this had not changed.

Returning to the present, I felt Jasper tense as the weeping began. I reached out and cupped his cheek, but he turned his face away from me as he felt Edward's shame.

Sighing, I gave up waiting. "We need to talk to him."

Jasper nodded, fighting back Edward's pain, and I pulled him gently upstairs, moving barely faster than a human until we came to Edward's firmly closed door.

"Edward?" I said softly, knowing that he had heard us coming.

There was no answer. Truthfully, I had known there would not be one, so I opened his door anyway.

He made no move to indicate that he knew of our presence. I felt that far-too-familiar sense of déjà vu as the future became the present. My brother stood straight, staring at the darkened landscape through the window, with his forearms pressed against the glass and his hands curled into fists. His shoulders shook violently. For many, this would have been a normal response to the near-murder of their girlfriend, but Edward… he never showed any emotion until the day he met Bella. Not really. Sure, he'd laugh and smile with the rest of us but it never quite reached his eyes and it was easy to see him as he saw himself: dead. The closest he ever got to expressing his feelings was his notorious temper: we had all been on the receiving end of one of his rages over the decades. Eventually he would calm down and ask for our forgiveness with his eyes as cold as ice, and we always gave it him. We knew, as he did not, that he was incomplete and hurting because of it.

It was difficult to reconcile that solitary being with Edward nowadays. When he finally let himself fall in love with Bella, he was transformed; he was alive. Bella had shown him so much, not least how to love. In response, he grew closer to us and we grew closer to him. Bella might not notice it, but every time he ruffled my short, unruly hair, it was a triumph, simply because before her, he would never touch anyone. Like he was protecting himself by making no links to anyone. No weaknesses. But no strength either.

Contemplating this, it still surprised me that he was not shouting at us, not lashing out. He was hurting more than any of us thought he would be. I was almost inclined to agree with Bella: it wasn't this big a deal. Nothing had happened. Why did it affect him so much? I looked again at his poker-straight spine and wondered how much it took him not to collapse.

Impulsively, I flitted to his side and flung my arms around his waist. "Oh, Edward…" I trailed off, for once deciding not to fill a silence with a constant babble of words. My brother tensed as I hugged him, so I quickly let go and took a half step back, searching his face and his future simultaneously. Flickers were all I received. He didn't know how to react.

Jasper stepped forward, walking slowly towards us. "Edward, I truly am sorry for what happened today. I know an apology isn't enough, but-"

"Sorry?" Edward's voice cut him off. It was seething with rage, and we waited for the inevitable storm. But he continued in a voice as unfeeling as stone. "What do you have to be sorry for?" He spoke in a flat monotone, scarily calm. "Being what you are? Reacting as any one of us would?" His words grew quieter and even we struggled to hear him. "This is my fault."

"No, it's not," I said instantly, even as Jasper asked "How do you work that out?"

His question sparked an inferno, and my love winced as a blaze of hatred roared through the room. Yet it wasn't directed at us as my brother continued to stare at the sliver of the moon. I understood now; it was self-hatred.

"Every day, I risk her life! Every time I bring her here, every time she sits with us at school, every second I am alone with her, I am holding an axe over her neck! If she had never met me, if I had never insisted on pursuing this impossible infatuation, James would never have tracked her! She could have gone to the prom with someone who wasn't constantly toying with the idea of murdering her, without a cast on her leg, without-" He froze, and his anger suddenly abated. "Without me," he finished.

"Without the love of her life?" I retorted, trying to fire his temper, anything other than this emotional lockdown.

"She'll find someone else," he replied, still looking away, still immobile, still with a voice like death.

"She would never have-" I began, but then I froze as well. "You're talking in the future tense."

Slowly, painfully slowly, he turned to face me for the first time. There was a split second more of indecision, and then he nodded.

A vision leapt unbidden into my head: Edward, curled up like a child in a dark room I didn't recognise, alone. The picture magnified with no conscious input on my part and I saw his eyes. If he had thought he'd been dead before, then I didn't know how to describe this. There were no words to possibly communicate what Edward's eyes told me. They were empty, yet still somehow filled with an agony I couldn't even begin to comprehend.

As abruptly as it came, it left me. Coming back to myself, I realised I was on my knees, head bowed almost to the ground in a foetal position. Jasper had his arms round me protectively.

"Alice, Al, honey, tell me what is it?"

We all three of us felt the same horror, Edward having seen exactly what I had and Jasper condemned to share our emotions. I raised my head to look at Edward, kneeling at his feet. His face was carefully composed into a perfect façade as he met my gaze evenly.

"It'll kill you," I whispered. _Edward, your heart will break._

He didn't acknowledge the thought or the statement, but looked up towards the door. Esme and Carlisle had heard me collapse and had come to investigate. Esme immediately came to my side as she processed my position and she and Jazz helped me up. I knew they were wondering what horrific even I had seen that had me, a vampire, unable to support myself and needing help to stand. As soon as I was able, I moved away from their grasp, towards my brother, my closest friend.

_And what about them? _I thought. He knew I meant our parents, our family. _What about me? I love her too, you know. And I love you. Do you want me to stand by and watch you slowly kill yourself?_

"It's what's best for her," he replied, totally disregarding my arguments. "If it keeps her alive, it's worth it."

Esme was about to speak when everyone – save Edward and me, still locked in opposing arguments, still staring at each other as though it would change our minds – looked up. Emmett and Rosalie were returning.

"I think we should discuss this downstairs," Carlisle said, his voice grave.

Esme and Carlisle left the room swiftly and silently. When I didn't follow, Jazz moved forward to take my arm and pull me gently away. Edward's gaze never left my face as I turned unwillingly and gave way to the sobs that been threatening all evening.


	2. Goodbye

Jazz was in shock, and for that matter, so was I; never once had I given way to tears before. Crying was such a human thing, something I didn't remember, but it was a completely involuntary reaction. I couldn't control it. I clung to Jasper, needing him in a different way to anything I had ever felt. I couldn't even contemplate leaving him; it hurt too much just to imagine the possibility.

We were all assembled in the dining room when Rosalie and Emmett joined us. My sister took one glance at my face then rushed to embrace me, kneeling at my feet. She could be an obnoxious pig at time but Rose was always my big sister and I knew that beneath her rude manner she cared for all of us deeply.

"Alice, what is it? Alice, sweetie?" She stiffened, making a connection. "This is about Bella, isn't it?" She spat the name like it was dirtying her mouth. "Edward, for the love of God, can't you see what you're doing, what _she's _doing to our family? Why can't you just-"

She didn't complete the hissed question before Edward interrupted. "Yes, Rose. That's exactly what I intend to do. Though not for those precise reasons."

For once in her life, Rosalie didn't have a sharp reply to throw back. She stared at him in blatant disbelief.

"What do you mean?" Emmett demanded. "Carlisle, what's going on?"

"Edward is about to tell us." Carlisle said. Rose and Emmett glanced at each other, before taking a seat, Rosalie keeping hold of my hand.

Esme had still not spoken; she simply watched the interplay between her children, refusing to comprehend what was taking place. Her eyes were trained on Edward as he moved to the head of the table. Rosalie's face was alight with suspicion and doubt. Emmett sat beside her, trying to understand, and Jazz continued to soothe me, his arm round my shoulders. I buried my face in his arm, not wanting to hear what was coming next. I couldn't bear to watch Edward as he began to speak.

"After what happened today, I have decided to leave Bella," he said. No preamble, no softening of the blow. "I will not force my decision on you, but I would like to ask if we could move on again, now. We would have to in a couple of years anyway, and I don't think Forks holds anything we would want to remember. Not without-" He caught himself before he could say her name. "You want to know why," he continued in response to the influx of questioning thoughts. "I'm not going to pretend I don't love her, I'm doing this for her. For her safety, for her wellbeing. She can't have the life she was born to lead with me in the picture. Rosalie, I know you worry about that."

_She was born to lead this life, _I thought. I couldn't control my voice enough to speak. _I saw it before I ever heard her name. I saw you together before you even saw her face._

"That won't happen now." Edward spoke directly to me. "Your visions aren't set in stone, Alice."

Automatically, I searched for Bella's future, a few years from now. I was expecting to see her human now this decision had been made. It surprised both Edward and I to see the same image as always. Edward and Bella, hand in hand, happiness and love adorning both their pale faces, saturating both pairs of golden eyes.

"She was born to lead this life," I repeated out loud. "It hasn't changed, Edward. I still see her as one of us. I still see you together."

"It's not your choice to make, Alice," Carlisle reminded me gently. I looked up at him, my eyes widening. Surely he didn't agree with Edward?

"It may not be my choice, but don't you think Bella should get a say in this? It's her life, Edward!"

"Exactly," Edward said, so calmly, with no doubt in his tone. "It's her life, and I will not end it for her."

There was a long silence. Eventually, Carlisle spoke up. "Edward, as I said before, this is your choice, not ours. I am willing to go with your decision." I made to interrupt, but Carlisle silenced me with a gesture. "Alice, I do, however, believe you have a valid point. Edward, have you considered Bella's right to a choice?"

"She'd want me to stay," Edward said. A hint of the pain I'd seen earlier trickled through, but he controlled it and banished it. "It won't help her move on, if she knew why…"

He trailed off and I jumped at the chance to change his mind. "You haven't thought about that, have you? What are you going to tell her?"

There was yet another pregnant pause. I combed the future eagerly, searching for his choices. The splinters of indecision peppered my view for a minute, before the vision solidified.

_Bella, hurt, scared, even. "You don't… want me?"_

_Edward, his eyes as cold as his skin. "No."_

I didn't look up to meet his gaze, instead fixing my eyes on my hand as I reached to intertwine my fingers with Jasper's. "You would lie to her. You would break the bond you share. You would tell her you don't love her," I accused him.

"Yes," he answered immediately. "If it keeps her safe."

Again, I checked the future. I seemed to be avoiding the present a lot tonight. Looking for Bella, I saw her sleeping. It felt profoundly wrong, watching this; it was Edward who always watched over Bella's sleep. In my head, Bella began to twitch, her face crumpling into a frown before she sat up abruptly and screamed. Screamed Edward's name. I was wondering why Charlie didn't burst in to his teenage daughter's room to check on her when I realised that he didn't need to; he knew exactly what was happening. It was a regular occurrence. As I watched, Bella's eyes snapped open; she had woken herself up. She began again to say my brother's name, quieter now, whimpering, but stopped herself as she doubled over in pain, a mirror image of Edward's future. She was, quite literally, dying of a broken heart.

I dragged myself back to the present, but before I could say a word, Edward stopped me. "She's human. Of course it will hurt, but she will heal. Time heals everything for her kind. She will forget me."

Opening my mouth to protest, I found myself drowned out by the rest of my family. Esme gasped, shocked at her son's uncaring comment. Emmett growled, as did Jasper; both of them had grown fond of Bella. Even Rosalie hissed at this blatant lie. But it was Carlisle's voice that cut above the rest.

"Do you really think so little of her, Edward?"

Father and son stared at each other for a long moment, before Edward sighed. "Of course not. But she has to move on and maybe she'll do that better if she thinks I have, too."

He was skirting round the issue and I could see that he didn't really have an answer. Despite that, he wasn't changing his mind.

I tried one last time. "Edward, earlier I said this would kill you. I was wrong. It will kill you both."

He entirely disregarded my statement, hearing, no doubt, an involuntary contradiction in my thoughts: I knew that wasn't true because even now that vision of the distant future fluttered into my mind's eye. Undying love between an undying pair.

Perhaps, I thought, I would have to make the best of this situation. Let him make this huge mistake, because I knew it wouldn't last. Though I hated myself for it, I finally succumbed.

"When?" I asked.

"Not for a few days. I'll have to make her believe that… I have to make her let me go."

"So we can say goodbye tomorrow, then? Or the day after? I mean, I'm not going to do anything fancy, but…" The look in Edward's eyes made me falter. I started again. "Edward? I can say goodbye, can't I?

He looked away before answering. "Alice, that won't help her. I suggest you leave now. I can at least give her a clean break."

Carlisle was nodding, but I couldn't accept it. "She's like my sister! She's practically family, she will be family one day, and you won't let me say goodbye?"

He didn't answer.

Wrenching my hands from Rosalie and Jasper, I stood suddenly, my chair slamming against the wall behind me. "Damn you, Edward!" I shrieked, pushed past my breaking point. "You can murder yourself, you can cleave Bella in two, but you can't stop me from saying goodbye!"

Not content with storming past him, I pushed him forcefully out of my way as I broke into a sprint. I heard Edward go to stop me, but Jazz restrained him with a low growl.

I was already out of the meadow that surrounded our home. I pelted through the forest, ignoring the cries of my brother as he pleaded with me to come back. The trees seemed to bend out of my way, even though I knew it was merely my vampiric grace that allowed me to forget the obstacles. The wind whipped past my tiny frame until I came to Bella's house. Not hesitating for an instant, I leapt nimbly up the gnarled tree by her window and jumped into her room, as I had seen Edward do so many times.

She was tossing and turning in her sleep, and occasionally she groaned when she leant on her injured arm. I stood, watching my newest sister, for a long time. I couldn't even bring myself to say what I had come to say. Hours passed, and dawn began to threaten the closure of my time with Bella. After all, I had no guarantee that _I_ would ever see her again.

When Edward returned, ready to greet her when she woke, I hissed under my breath without turning.

"I need to be with her, Alice," he said. "You know that."

_So why don't you stay?_

He didn't answer, and I didn't look at him as I bent and kissed her on the cheek, as I had done so long ago when she had first met our family.

"Goodbye, Bella," I murmured. "And whatever he tells you, you are destined to be together. He will always love you. And so will I."

I straightened up and jumped back out of the window.

I did not look Edward in the eye.


End file.
